No, we aren’t a banana republic!

[Skeptic786]

No, we aren’t a banana republic!

Sarmad Bashir

Less than a month short of the seventh anniversary of the military takeover, the Musharraf government was virtually shaken by the rumours of a coup that spread across the country within hours with the massive power breakdown adding impetus to the speculations about the change of guard in Islamabad. The rumours were so intense that no less a person than General Musharraf had to quash them. Back from an ‘unscheduled’ medical check-up at a small hospital in a Texan suburb he rushed to the media to declare: “Pakistan is not a banana republic. Everything is normal, there’s no coup.”
It all happened on the eve of the formal launching of General Musharraf’s Memoirs – In the Line of Fire – which apart from other things reveals details of his own takeover. The President talks about the circumstances in which he became the leader of the country. “ On October 12, 1999, the hour between 6:45 and 7:45 in the evening, Pakistan’s history changed dramatically…As the news of a political coup dawned on me, my army rallied behind me. It was launching a counter coup,” he says recalling the moments the PIA flight bringing him back from Colombo with around 200 passengers on board was directed to “ get out of Pakistan and go anywhere.”
Imagine the feeling of a person having assumed power through a coup to hear about being toppled with his own army smashing his unity of command to smithereens. For a while the rumours of coup would have turned him into a bundle of nerves. And it would have been more distressing to find the jubilant crowds in Balochistan pouring on to the streets to celebrate the end of a repressive era. The mere thought of returning home in such a situation would have given General Musharraf nightmares.
Doesn’t all this point to political instability in the country? Likewise, it brings into question the President’s oft-repeated claim of giving Pakistan a stable political system after purging it of the corrupt politicos who had brought the country on the verge of bankruptcy. But what he is not prepared to understand is that politically Pakistan is more unstable today than at any time in the past. There is widespread animus against the present regime which having capitulated to our so-called strategic allies feels no qualms about giving a free run to the American-led Coalition forces to capture and kill our own citizens. The two western provinces are in turmoil. The Baloch are up in arms in protest against the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti in military action. But those who believe in the logic of naked state aggression seem to be in no mood to end repression, leaving no room for the nationalists to settle for anything short of Balochistan’s secession from Pakistan.
General Musharraf says that Pakistan decided to join the global coalition against terrorism after he had “ war gamed the United States as an adversary.” It took him five years to reveal that he had been threatened by the US to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age if it didn’t cooperate in the War on Terror, planned to avenge 9/11 strikes on Twin Towers and the Pentagon. It is puzzling that the story of the Bomb Threat started unfolding when President Bush, viewing with skepticism the recent peace deal in North Waziristan, dropped a hint about launching an operation in our tribal areas if his intelligence confirmed Osama bin Laden’s presence in the region. The American plans need to be seen in the backdrop of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s latest assertion that, “ If I say Osama is in Pakistan, Musharraf will be mad at me; and if I say that he is in Afghanistan then it won’t be true.”
The question remains whether the present regime has the guts to withstand the impending American onslaught on our soil. The nation has very serious doubts about it and it is not without a rationale. But our sacred saviours should not ignore the fact that the more they allow their leadership to capitulate to the American pressure, the faster the country would move towards instability. There shouldn’t be any doubt about Pakistan not being a banana republic but the Occupant of the GHQ will have to do a lot of soul searching to prevent the country from becoming the one, by blindly following the foreign dictates.
To ward off this doomsday scenario the army will have to seriously think about withdrawing to the barracks it belongs, leaving it to the democratically elected government to decide how to deal with the challenges facing the country and safeguard its sovereignty. The nation has to be relieved of the dilemma of drawing excitement from the rumours of the incumbent military ruler having been replaced by another adventurist. Let democracy thrive and change the public perception that our uniformed saviours can topple any democratic regime as and when they so desire.
E-mail: sarmad@nation.com.pk